I still kind of can't believe that I found a recipe that fit my ingredients so well. I had cream cheese, fresh goat cheese, and mascarpone to use up. This cake uses all three. And it calls for cranberries and pistachios, both of which I had in the freezer. And the cranberries have been going begging for months now, so I was thrilled to finally have a use for them. (I kept contemplating trying to make cranberry curd to use as either a cake or pie filling, but never quite getting around to it.)

And the cake was delicious. Not, I think, my favourite cheesecake, but it was still really good.

The cake itself is very simple. Just cheese, eggs, and a bit of sugar and vanilla. No crust either! The topping is a little more complicated since you have to poach the cranberries and then strain them and use the poaching liquid to make a gelée. Plus there's making the candied pistachios. But none of those tasks are particularly onerous. I think the worst part of making this cake was all the waiting! Everything needs to be cooled and cilled to set up properly, so it takes forever to be ready to eat. (I actually got impatient and cut mine before the topping had completely set. It was still tasty, just a bit messy.)

Goat Cheese Cake with Wine-Poached Cranberries and Candied Pistachios

Slightly adapted from Food & Wine

Ingredients

Cake

• 375g cream cheese, softened
• 225g fresh goat cheese
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 1 vanilla bean
• 340g mascarpone
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature

Topping

• 1 c. port¹
• 3/4 c. sugar
• 2-3 strips of lemon peel (~2cm x 5cm each)
• 225g fresh or frozen cranberries
• 1 Tbsp. cold water
• 1 1/4 tsp. unflavoured gelatin
• 1/2 c. candied pistachios

Directions

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F) and wrap a 23cm (9") springform pan in tin foil.
2. Combine the cream cheese, goat cheese, sugar, and salt.
3. Split open the vanilla bean, scrape out the seeds, and add them to the bowl with the cheeses and sugar. (Put the vanilla pod in your sugar bowl or save it for another use.)
4. Beat the cheese mixture for 2-3 minutes.
5. Add the mascarpone and beat it in.
6. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
7. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared springform and place it in a roasting pan or other large vessel. Pour hot water into the roasting pan until it comes ~2/3 of the way up the side of the foil-wrapped springform.
8. Carefully transfer the cake in its bain marie to the oven and bake at 160°C (325°F) for ~60 minutes².
9. Transfer springform pan to wire rack to cool.
10. After 1-2 hours, transfer cake to fridge and chill for at least an hour or two before proceeding. (Overnight would be better, but I'm not that patient!)

Topping

1. Combine wine, sugar, and lemon peel and bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Cook, stirring occasionally, for ~3 minutes.
3. Add cranberries and cook until they begin to pop (~3 minutes).
4. Remove from heat and allow to cool (~1 hour).
5. Pour mixture through a fine mesh strainer, reserving both the cranberries and the poaching liquid. (Discard the lemon peel.)
6. Place cold water in a small bowl and sprinkle with gelain. Set aside for 5 minutes.
7. Meanwhile, return poaching liquid to pot and bring to a boil over medium heat.
8. Cook, stirring occasionally, for ~5 minutes.
9. Remove from heat, add softened gelatin, and stir until dissolved (~1 minute).
10. Pour mixture through a fine mish strainer into a bowl and let cool to room temperature. Skim off any foam or bubbles.
11. Pour gelatin mixture over the chilled cheesecake, tilting to completely coat the top of the cake.
12. Chill, uncovered, until gelatin has set (~1 hour).
13. Meanwhile, make the candied pistachios as directed.
14. Once gelée has set, decorate the cake with the poached cranberries and candied pistachios.
15. Run a hot knife or offset spatula around the edge of the springform pan, then remove the sides.

---

¹ I didn't have any port and I didn't want to go out and get a bottle just for this, so I mixed ~1 tsp. of brown sugar into a cup of dry red wine and called it a day. ^Back
2 I checked my cake after 60 minutes and it still seemed really, really jiggly, so I gave it another 10. Then I was worried that it still wasn't done, so I turned off the oven, but put it back in the warm oven for another 10 minutes. I think that last 10 minutes in the warm oven may have been a bit too much though, because my cake came out kind of crumbly. Next time I should probably cook it a little less. Oh well... ^Back

Lagan nu Custard (Wedding Custard)

I had a bit of down time while making the curry for dinner tonight, so I decided to try to whip up a dessert as well. This custard looked reasonably straight-forward (if a bit slow), so I figured I'd give it a go.

Lagan nu Custard

Slightly adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

Ingredients

• 1L whole (3.25%) milk
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. cardamom seeds (from green pods), ground
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/4 c. slivered almonds
• 1/2-1 tsp. vanilla extract¹
• 3 large eggs
• saffron (optional)
• fresh or dried rose petals (optional)

Directions

1. Bring milk to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently.
2. Reduce heat to medium and continue boiling, stirring frequently, for 35 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and stir in sugar, cardamom, nutmeg, almonds, and vanilla (or other extracts).
4. Set aside to cool for 20-30 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F), grease a baking dish (or half a dozen custard cups), and boil some water.
6. If using saffron, sprinkle a few threads into the bottom of the baking dish/custard cups.
7. Once the milk mixture has cooled down, beat in the eggs and mix well.
8. Pour the custard into the prepared baking dish (or custard cups) and place the dish/cups in a pan. Pour boiling water into the pan so that it comes about halfway up the sides of the baking dish/cups.
9. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 30-40 minutes (less for custard cups).
10. Remove from oven. Remove dish/cups from bain marie and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
11. Sprinkle a few rose petals on top before serving if desired.

---

¹ The original recipe calls for a full teaspoon of vanilla. I scaled it back to only half a teaspoon because I didn't want to overshadow the saffron. Iyer also suggests that the vanilla could be swapped out for mango, pistachio, or guava essence for an even more exotic flavour. ^Back

I had some extra egg yolks to use up and decided to try out this baked custard now that we've restocked on chocolate. I'm really pleased with how it came out. Pleasantly chocolatey and not too sweet. I served it with a dollop of unswetened whipped cream.

Chocolate Custard

Slightly adapted from the Good Egg by Marie Simmons

Ingredients

• 2 c. whole (3-4%) milk
• 85g dark chocolate
• 1/3 c. sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks¹
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Heat milk over medium-low heat until hot, but not boiling.
3. Add chocolate and sugar and stir until chocolate has melted and sugar has dissolved.
4. Remove from heat and set aside.
5. Whisk together eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla.
6. Slowly whisk in the milk mixture.
7. If desired, strain the mixture. (I didn't bother with straining.)
8. Pour the mixture into a baking dish or several small ramekins.
9. Place the dish(es) into a large baking pan and pour boiling water into the pan so that it comes halfway up the sides of the dish(es).
10. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 30 minutes.
11. My custard didn't seem quite set yet, so I removed it from the bain marie and baked it at 160°C (325°F) for another 5 minutes.
12. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
13. Serve room temperature or chilled. Top with whipped cream if desired.

---

¹ My eggs were a little on the small side and I had three egg yolks to use up, so I just put them all in. ^Back

I made quiche the other day. The recipe was for a "shallow 9 inch tart tin", which is what I used. My eggs weren't overly large, but I still somehow managed to have nearly a cup of custard left over. Since the custard was unseasoned, I decided to look for something else to do with it to use it up and landed on this coconut custard recipe. The original recipe alls for 3 large eggs + 1 yolk and 2 cups of milk or half-and-half. I figured that since I had about a cup of custard left (made with heavy cream), I'd just add two whole eggs and a cup of milk and call it a day.

The recipe below follows the book, rather than exactly what I did since I don't expect everyone to be making this with half a portion of left over custard mixture. The only change I've made is to mix the full amount of coconut into the custard rather than saving a portion for sprinkling on top. I tried it with extra coconut sprinkled on top and it was fine, but I don't think I added anything that mixing the extra into the custard wouldn't have done.

Coconut Custard

Slightly adapted from the Good Egg by Marie Simmons

Ingredients

• 2/3 c. sweetened flaked coconut
• 3 large eggs
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1/3 c. sugar
• 2 c. half-and-half (10%) or table (18%) cream
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F) and boil some water.
2. Spread coconut out on a pie plate or baking sheet and bake until golden (~5 minutes).
3. If using individual custard cups, divide the coconut evenly between the cups and place them in a 23x33cm (9x13") baking pan. If using one large dish, place the coconut in the bottom of the dish and set it inside a larger pan.
4. Whisk eggs, egg yolk, and sugar together.
5. Whisk in cream and vanilla.
6. Pour mixture into baking dish or divide between custard cups.
7. Add boiling water to the outer pan to come ~halfway up the side of the custard dish(es).
8. Bake until set but still jiggly (25-30 minutes).
9. Remove from oven and cool slightly before serving. Serve warm or chilled.

This is the first thing I've made where I've felt a little like I was trying to do a Great British Bake Off technical challenge. I had a recipe, but I had no idea what it was supposed to come out like. And the recipe seemed very odd to me. The description made it sound like a sort of lemon self-saucing sponge pudding. But the recipe only contained 2 Tbsp. of sugar and looked a bit more souflé-like.

In the end, it came out very light, pale, and almost meringue-like with -- as promised by Edmonds -- a layer of lemon custard at the bottom. I think it probably could've used a couple tablespoons more sugar, but that could just be down to the size of my lemon.

Lemon Delicious

From Edmonds Cookery Book

Ingredients

• 1 c. full fat milk¹
• 1/2 c. sugar
• juice and zest of one lemon
• 2 Tbsp. soft (plain/standard/cake) flour
• 1 Tbsp. salted butter, melted
• 2 eggs, separated

Directions

1. Whisk together milk, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, flour, butter, and egg yolks until smooth and well-blended.
2. Preheat oven to 325°F (160°C) and grease a small casserole dish and set it inside a larger ovenproof dish or pot filled with enough water to come about halfway up the sides of the casserole.
3. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
4. Gently fold egg whites into lemon mixture being careful not to knock too much air out.
5. Pour mixture into prepared casserole.
6. Bake at 325°F (160°C) for 40 minutes.

---

¹ I ended up using 2 Tbsp. of heavy (35%) cream and then adding 1% milk to make a cup. That seems to have done a reasonable job of approximating whole/full fat milk. ^Back